Earth Impact Effects Program

Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins

Please note: the results below are estimates based on current (limited) understanding of the impact process and come with large uncertainties; they should be used with caution, particularly in the case of peculiar input parameters. All values are given to three significant figures but this does not reflect the precision of the estimate. For more information about the uncertainty associated with our calculations and a full discussion of this program, please refer to this article

Your Inputs:

Distance from Impact: 100.00 meters ( = 328.00 feet )
Projectile diameter: 120.00 meters ( = 394.00 feet )
Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 20.00 km per second ( = 12.40 miles per second )
Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
Target Type: Sedimentary Rock

Energy:

Energy before atmospheric entry: 5.43 x 1017 Joules = 1.30 x 102 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 9.9 x 103years

Major Global Changes:

The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the tilt of Earth's axis (< 5 hundreths of a degree).
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.

Atmospheric Entry:

The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 56600 meters = 186000 ft
The projectile reaches the ground in a broken condition. The mass of projectile strikes the surface at velocity 11.4 km/s = 7.07 miles/s
The energy lost in the atmosphere is 3.67 x 1017 Joules = 8.77 x 101 MegaTons.
The impact energy is 1.76 x 1017 Joules = 4.20 x 101MegaTons.
The larger of these two energies is used to estimate the airblast damage.
The broken projectile fragments strike the ground in an ellipse of dimension 0.82 km by 0.58 km

Crater Dimensions:

What does this mean?


Crater shape is normal in spite of atmospheric crushing; fragments are not significantly dispersed.

Transient Crater Diameter: 1.7 km ( = 1.05 miles )
Transient Crater Depth: 600 meters ( = 1970 feet )

Final Crater Diameter: 2.12 km ( = 1.32 miles )
Final Crater Depth: 452 meters ( = 1480 feet )
The crater formed is a simple crater

The floor of the crater is underlain by a lens of broken rock debris (breccia) with a maximum thickness of 209 meters ( = 687 feet ).
At this impact velocity ( < 12 km/s), little shock melting of the target occurs.

Ejecta:

What does this mean?


Your position was inside the transient crater and ejected upon impact